“We both loved him,” said Cain tenderly. “It’s terrible what happened to him. In a million years, we didn’t want that.” He paused. “But it happened, and he wouldn’t have wanted us to grieve him forever. Not at all. His final words prove that he wanted us to be happy, princess.”
Exhausted, but strangely comforted, she lay her head back down and let Cain wrap his arms around her, pulling her close. She rested her ear over his strong, beating heart, and that’s how she fell asleep for the second time: bound to him in sorrow but united in peace.
***
Cain waited until her breathing was deep and easy before shifting to his side and pulling her close so they were spooned together as she slept. He had known all along that he couldn’t share Woodman’s last words with her until she was convinced of his love, but after sharing their bodies with each other tonight, he didn’t want to keep the secret anymore. He didn’t want any secrets between them. Ever.
Besides, he couldn’t bear for her to feel guilty being together, when Woodman’s final words on this earth had been about Cain and Ginger loving each other. Woodman wouldn’t have wanted her to be unhappy. Not for a moment. He’d lived his life for her happiness. And now she knew that finding their way to each other wasn’t a betrayal of Woodman, but a fulfillment of his wishes, and Cain hoped she would find the same peace that he’d been able to find in honoring his cousin’s last request.
He closed his eyes and pictured Josiah’s face as a freckled little kid—as Cain’s first playmate, his best friend in kindergarten, at family birthdays and summer picnics. Josiah’s blond hair shining in the sun and moss-green eyes crinkled with laughter, and there was Ginger in his memories too—pudgy little Ginger wearing a daisy crown on her white-blonde hair, holding tightly to the cousins’ hands as they ran through meadows together.
For as long as he lived, Cain would miss Woodman.
For as long as he lived, Cain would be good to, and care for, and love Ginger.
Not because he’d promised Woodman, but because loving Ginger was so deeply ingrained into the fiber of Cain. If he concentrated hard, he could still feel those chubby fingers holding fast to his.
But he would be forever grateful to Woodman for finally letting him know that his time to love her had finally come—that he was worthy of her.
Tightening his arm underneath her breasts and bending his knees into hers, he matched their breathing, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
Chapter 34
Ginger had been in love with Cain for a long time, but there was a precious, inconceivable dreaminess to knowing that her love was wholly and utterly reciprocated. They’d spent Saturday morning in bed, making love, before Cain took her out for a giant breakfast at a local diner, and then to Bed Bath & Beyond, where he asked for her advice in choosing curtains for his living room and a new comforter for his bed.
These were mundane activities—sitting across from one another in a diner booth and shopping for home goods—that millions of couples around the world were engaged in, but for Ginger, who’d waited her whole life to belong to Cain, and whose terrible guilt over loving Cain had finally been lifted, she could barely contain her happiness.
He reached for her easily, holding her hand, placing his palm in the small of her back or dropping a tender kiss to her temple as she held up a chocolate-brown blanket that matched the new tan comforter perfectly. There was an easiness between them, born of a lifelong friendship, and a heat, born of their newfound love, and the combination made her giddy.
Saturday afternoon he showed her around his townhouse complex, and she watched the proud expression on his face, in his eyes, as he pointed out the pond and the pool and asked if she was any good at tennis. She wasn’t, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was realizing that he’d grown into a responsible and self-reliant man who wasn’t just giving her a tour of his community but—in every glance, in the subtext of every word—offering it to her, to share it with her when and if she was ever ready to give him that chance.
And the thing is? For all that she hadn’t been ready, ever, to marry Woodman, thoughts of marrying Cain flooded her mind with anticipation and excitement. She couldn’t wait to hold his hand and leap into forever.
On Sunday he offered to drive her to church, but she declined. She imagined the pain in Miz Sophie’s eyes to see her nephew slipping into the shoes of her son, and she knew that compassion and discretion was the right path for them, no matter how impatient Cain felt about declaring their status to the world.